A podcast about women and politics

Menu

Making Space: How to make politics more accessible for the LGTBQ community

In this week’s episode, we step outside the binary, thanks to the help of our intern Danielle. She talks to two members of Edmonton’s trans community, about how to make space for people like them in politics.

Francis Nievera is an open trans Grade 11 student at Blessed Oscar Romero High School. He was previously student council president. But after facing off with school administration over Pride Month decorations, he was left feeling unsafe and unheard. Francis talks about how fellow students rallied around him for support, and having his voice heard as a young queer activist.

Stephanie Shostak works with the Trans Equality Society of Alberta, an advocacy group for trans Albertans. Stephanie talks about how the concerns of trans folks are often similar to those of other potential politicians: What will this mean for my family? How can I make a difference? But the barriers this community faces are often unlike those of others.

Also, we talk about the Twitter backlash against comedian Michelle Wolf after her roast at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner. Some say her comments toward press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders went too far. Other applauded her for her honesty. What do you think? We’ll post a link to the video so you can decide for yourselves. We’d love to hear your responses on this as well! You can send those to us on Facebook, or on our Twitter, @broadcast_yeg.